2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

Folks,

On Chief Delphi, let's use this thread to discuss the 2009 FRC season's version of the 5th Gear FRC match simulator.

Notice that there is a FIRST FORUM here (FIRST Forums 5th Gear Simulations page) for Q&A when you have an installation, maintenance or similar question.

Here is where you go to see the announcement, download instructions, and download the software
http://thinktank.wpi.edu/article/141
Thanks WPI !!!

Please direct all other Chief Delphi 5th Gear conversations here first, and only spin off new/different threads if necessary.

Blake

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

Is there any way to play it alone or over the internet, not just on a LAN?

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

FYI - I just had to put pointers into 9 :ahh: separate threads to get them all pointed at this one :)

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

If this is the watering hole, a link to the simulation would be valuable.

http://thinktank.wpi.edu/article/141

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

Hi - We are glad you are interested!

We developed this year's version with only LANs in mind. Like you, we would like to expand its reach out into WANs (ie any random set of half-fast nodes attached to the internet, or other WANs) but this year we have not done any testing in that sort of configuration, nor have we made a concerted attempt to have the code operate well in that sort of environment.

So, your mileage may vary. If the clients trying to participate in a match can all reach the server with very low delays, it might work OK. If not, then all bets are off.

I suggest trying it in a LAN, before trying it across a WAN, so that if you do try it across the net or another WAN, you can assess for yourself if it glitches.

About playing solo - The computer-controlled-robot software (to give you an opponent) is going to come out later, so for right now, solo play (one client connected to the server) wouldn't be too exciting, but, on the other hand, practice makes perfect.

Blake
PS: I'm guessing that running simulations across the internet or other WANs will be near the top of our most-frequently-requested-improvements-list by the time this season is over.

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

Thanks Don - My mother-in-law called before I could get the link posted. - I just edited the original post to include it.

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

Blake,
First of all, a thank you to you and the Lockheed guys for putting this together. I bet it took a lot of work, and I think it could be very useful to A LOT of teams.


I installed it, and got it running. I do not have anyone else to really play with at the moment, so I figured I would give it a go solo. It didn't appear that was any option for me to control a robot. The match did begin, however the moon rocks were just tossed around the field, and I coudl only control a flying camera. Is there a way to just play a match solo?

Thanks again for your effort.

Brando


EDIT: It appears that you need to have 2 instances running of the simulation...1 to host the game, and 1 to control the robot in the game

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

You got it. It was designed for running a complete match in a LAN environment. AI Robots are coming down the pipe though...

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

Yes, you'll need 1 server instance running. Then, just start another isntance as a client and connect to 127.0.0.1 (which is the default iirc). I did it in sandbox mode last night. It's a good simulation of the drive, I think. Is there a way to make the walls clear, or drive the bot in first person? Even better would be to drive the bot from the driver station's point of view.

If someone set up a dedicated server ... now that would be fantastic! I know we can set one up internally in the school, but porting that out to the internet may be a challenge...

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

I second the request for clear walls.

Sandbox mode...I'm assuming this is referring to driving in somewhat of a sandbox? I did notice the drive to be very different between the 2 modes.


Very awesome tool to have though!

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

Brando - You are correct.

The simulation uses a client(s)-server set-up. The one Server instance of the software that you start up for a match does have a display that can be used to watch what is going on from an adjustable viewpoint. Each user (whether a real human or the computer controlled clients that are due out soon) connects to that server and shows that client's view of the field. The view starts out behind the driver station wall and can be shifted to other perspectives.

The Client instances are how you control a simulated robot. The Server combines the Clients' actions into an integrated result and then sends that result out to the Clients. The Clients then send further actions into the Server, .... This happens rapidly over and over throughout the match.

Blake

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

the install went fine... i did as i was told and installed the .net 3.5 framework sp1 first and then installed the program. but i went to run the program i ran into this error... "Cannot continue. the application is improperly formatted. contact the application vendor for assistance." any ideas?

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

Not yet, though it is on our todo list.

Try the 'C' key for camera modes. 3 modes: Chase (default), Overhead, and Competition view.

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

Anyone have any luck installing in Windows 7? I get a BSOD :ahh:

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

Installed it and played around in the sandbox a little. One thing I noticed is that when driving into a pile of balls the robot tends to get stuck but I'm sure on what. For example if I drive along a wall into a pile of balls the robot will get stuck even if there is plenty of space for the balls to get pushed. Is this a bug or just something weird happening.

Anyways this thing is awesome and looks to be a great tool. Thanks for all the hard by the engineers at Lockheed.

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

Minor quibble: why is chase the default camera view? IMO this is the most useless of the 3 views. Driver practice will almost certainly want to use the Competition view and strategy development will likely use the competition or overhead views.

The chase view starts the match with your camera pointing at the back of a wall if you start in one of the corner locations (not sure about the center one)

Overall, a great program from the little I have been able to play around with it. We will hopefully get a lot of useful strategy development and driver training done with the assistance of this program.

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

A leftover legacy of the fact this was developed initially as an exhibit. The problem with the other two modes is
1) No easy way to see which robot you're actually controlling... pretty confusing when you've got 6 robots running around the field.
2) The controls are more intuitive when you're behind the robot (up for forward, etc).

Both are essential for drivers to learn of course, drivers need to learn to overcome the confusion (especially this year when there are balls flying around everywhere and human players to contend with) and drive with the robot's axis in mind, but someone first picking up an Xbox controller would find both of these views difficult to start with.

We may just make it a game option what default view you start with in the next patch.

Glad you like it so far! On this first run, we're definitely looking for feedback on how to make this a more effective tool, so make sure to record any thoughts on strengths/weaknesses when you do use it for driver training/strategy development. There will be some surveys coming later in the build season.

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

?

When I'm in Lunacy, the friction too high, I don't know if that's just how it drives or if there is little physics applied...

Also, anyone know how to manipulate the balls???

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

Are you running a client? If you're just running the server you're just controlling the camera. You need to create a client to connect to the server to drive a bot. It will then give you prompts of what keys to press to manipulate the balls.

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

First off, VERY NICE PROGRAM and thank you for putting the time in to do this!

I do like all of the above suggestions and would like to add a concern. For some reason Overdrive works fine, but Lunacy is very, very laggy for me with the lowest settings. I play some pretty graphics intensive games on my laptop. Anyone else having this issue?

Also (just a cool thing not a requirement, you guys have already done a lot), but a controls setting would be nice.

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

My guess is that its not graphics... the main difference between Lunacy and Overdrive in the game engine are the number of physics objects in play (10 for a full overdrive game vs well over 100 in Lunacy).

If you have an NVidia card, you might want to update your drivers. We are using the NVidia PhysX engine, and some of their more recent cards have hardware to accelerate physics using this engine.

On the todo list!

Just a point for everyone: The FIRST website forums are the official forums, so any feature requests/bug reports are more likely to be heard and tracked there then here.

http://forums.usfirst.org/forumdisplay.php?f=1091

This is also linked in the original post of this thread.

By the way, David Dobbs, one of the developers, posted a nice picture by picture walkthrough in how to get started using 5th Gear.

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

Nice job. Is that C#? It looks like it was made with some version of visual studio. Anyway, is there any way to define your own robot to get an idea of how the team bots will drive? If so, I couldn't find it.

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

dp - Did you get an answer for this question? If not, ask it in the FIRST Forum. There is a link in my original post in this thread - Blake

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

I really want to try this program out, but the link on http://thinktank.wpi.edu/article/141 seems to be dead. I get "The requested URL /resources/263/5thGear2009v1_0.zip was not found on this server."

Is there something I'm doing wrong, like not seeing a different link?

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

Fixed. Thanks for the heads up!

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

Ok i installed the simulator and restarted my computer then when it goes to start i get a can not start application message. then its details list this


PLATFORM VERSION INFO
Windows : 6.0.6000.0 (Win32NT)
Common Language Runtime : 2.0.50727.312
System.Deployment.dll : 2.0.50727.312 (rtmLHS.050727-3100)
mscorwks.dll : 2.0.50727.312 (rtmLHS.050727-3100)
dfdll.dll : 2.0.50727.312 (rtmLHS.050727-3100)
dfshim.dll : 2.0.50727.312 (rtmLHS.050727-3100)

SOURCES
Deployment url : file:///C:/Users/Matthew/Desktop/5thGear2009v1_0(2)/Lunacy%20Release%20Candidate%201%20-%20subversion%20rev%20149%20-%2020090122/5thGear.application

ERROR SUMMARY
Below is a summary of the errors, details of these errors are listed later in the log.
* Activation of C:\Users\Matthew\Desktop\5thGear2009v1_0(2)\Lunacy Release Candidate 1 - subversion rev 149 - 20090122\5thGear.application resulted in exception. Following failure messages were detected:
+ Exception reading manifest from file:///C:/Users/Matthew/Desktop/5thGear2009v1_0(2)/Lunacy%20Release%20Candidate%201%20-%20subversion%20rev%20149%20-%2020090122/5thGear.application: the manifest may not be valid or the file could not be opened.
+ Manifest XML signature is not valid.
+ No signature was present in the subject.


COMPONENT STORE TRANSACTION FAILURE SUMMARY
No transaction error was detected.

WARNINGS
There were no warnings during this operation.

OPERATION PROGRESS STATUS
* [2/14/2009 11:07:54 PM] : Activation of C:\Users\Matthew\Desktop\5thGear2009v1_0(2)\Lunacy Release Candidate 1 - subversion rev 149 - 20090122\5thGear.application has started.

ERROR DETAILS
Following errors were detected during this operation.
* [2/14/2009 11:07:54 PM] System.Deployment.Application.InvalidDeploymentExc eption (ManifestParse)
- Exception reading manifest from file:///C:/Users/Matthew/Desktop/5thGear2009v1_0(2)/Lunacy%20Release%20Candidate%201%20-%20subversion%20rev%20149%20-%2020090122/5thGear.application: the manifest may not be valid or the file could not be opened.
- Source: System.Deployment
- Stack trace:
at System.Deployment.Application.ManifestReader.FromD ocument(String localPath, ManifestType manifestType, Uri sourceUri)
at System.Deployment.Application.DownloadManager.Down loadDeploymentManifestDirectBypass(SubscriptionSto re subStore, Uri& sourceUri, TempFile& tempFile, SubscriptionState& subState, IDownloadNotification notification, DownloadOptions options, ServerInformation& serverInformation)
at System.Deployment.Application.DownloadManager.Down loadDeploymentManifestBypass(SubscriptionStore subStore, Uri& sourceUri, TempFile& tempFile, SubscriptionState& subState, IDownloadNotification notification, DownloadOptions options)
at System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationActivator .PerformDeploymentActivation(Uri activationUri, Boolean isShortcut)
at System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationActivator .ActivateDeploymentWorker(Object state)
--- Inner Exception ---
System.Deployment.Application.InvalidDeploymentExc eption (SignatureValidation)
- Manifest XML signature is not valid.
- Source: System.Deployment
- Stack trace:
at System.Deployment.Application.Manifest.AssemblyMan ifest.ValidateSignature(Stream s)
at System.Deployment.Application.ManifestReader.FromD ocument(String localPath, ManifestType manifestType, Uri sourceUri)
--- Inner Exception ---
System.Security.Cryptography.CryptographicExceptio n
- No signature was present in the subject.

- Source: System.Deployment
- Stack trace:
at System.Deployment.Internal.CodeSigning.SignedCmiMa nifest.Verify(CmiManifestVerifyFlags verifyFlags)
at System.Deployment.Application.Manifest.AssemblyMan ifest.ValidateSignature(Stream s)

COMPONENT STORE TRANSACTION DETAILS
No transaction information is available.

any help would be apprcated. our schools computers are junk and i am the only one on the team who is willing to bring in their computer that can run this.

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

C M - I'm sending a heads-up email to the guys who developed the installer and the part of the software that would create those messages. - Blake

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

The guys are scratching their heads... Stay tuned

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

k thanks

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

I started to download 5th gear, but the website said to install NVIDA PhysX first. According to the NVIDA website my GeForce 7600 video card is incompatible with this software. Am I out of luck on this?

ChrisH

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

My laptop is below the minimum specs (it doesn't have a video card - only integrated graphics) and it can run the simulator just fine without shadows or anti-aliasing. Since you have an actual NVIDIA card, you should be able to install the PhysX engine and run the simulator.

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

Correct. PhysX has two operation modes: hardware accelerated, and software emulated. Only the latest NVidia cards have the capability of running the hardware acceleration, which is probably what you read, but any system with the minimum specs to run the software emulation can install and use PhysX.

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

The simulator has been updated to version 1.1.

See http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=12421 for the feature list.

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

Awesome post, thanks!

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

So... when can we see the 2010 5th gear?

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

Next January! :P

Re: 2009 5th Gear FRC Match Simulator
 

Discussion for 2010 version is here:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...790#post895790

It is indeed on its way.